Descending For Some Miles, We Passed A Garden Of Olives, That Must Have Been Upwards Of A Thousand Years Old, Upon Our Right; And Still Inclining Downwards, Through Ground Cultivated With Cereals Completely Withered By The Drought, We At Length Arrived At The Broad But Perfectly Dry Bed Of The River.

Crossing this, we steered for a grove of ancient olive-trees, which I at once selected for a camping-place, on the outskirts of the town.

We were now twenty-three miles from Lapithus, and I felt sure that our baggage animals would not arrive till nightfall.

As we sat beneath one of these grand old olive-trees alone, Iiani having taken his mules to his home, and probably at the same time having advertised our arrival, throngs of women and children approached to salaam and to stare. I always travelled with binocular glasses slung across my back, and these were admirable stare-repellers; it was only necessary to direct them upon the curious crowd, and the most prominent individuals acknowledged their power by first looking shy and conscious, and then confusedly laughing and retreating to the rear.

We had arrived at 2.20 P.M., and we waited beneath the olive-trees until 8 P.M., when the advance camels at length came in after dark. It was 9.30 before the tents were pitched and the camp arranged. The great delay had been occasioned by Iiani's old camel, which had, as I had expected, rolled down the steep bill with its load, and having nearly killed itself, had mortally wounded the sacred copper kettle, which every traveller knows is one of his Penates, or household gods, to which he clings with reverence and affection.

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